Category: Work

I am not a big drinker, for a number of reasons. I couldn’t afford it! I can’t take it. I very rarely get the chance.

Well, I had the chance this weekend. And I needed it.

It’s been trying. My wife has been unwell, her heart condition being exacerbated by viruses and colds. We have money worries piling up and our youngest is struggling with his behaviour at school – we have been summoned! We suspect they have forgotten the fact that he has ASD!

So I had a works do – all expenses paid. I was only supposed to go out for a few – but you know – that third one always persuades you otherwise. Plus it was a bit of a celebration having passed my three-month probation in my new job.

So it turned into a full night. An epic night.

A very long hungover Saturday.

I have to say a big thank you to my wife who understood. It might be some time before I can enjoy something like that again. Despite how she was feeling she let me have that time. Even took the kids out the next day to spare me.

Now we have to face the next hurdles. A visit to the school. A trip to the hospital for her pre-operation checks, then waiting for the phone call.

In between, we are trying to squeeze in time for our eldest who is getting his time with us squeezed by all this. He wants to start clarinet lessons! That, I really want to nurture.

Somehow, strangely, against all expectations, a debauched Friday night has made me feel better able to face it all.

Like this:

Unless he went made it through today. Found the strength from somewhere. Put aside his pain.

The trauma his son had suffered had not been at his hands. Logically there was no responsibility for it on his shoulders.

Logic was a weak fence against raw emotion. Emotion that told him that he had failed as a father, that the protection he was supposed to give had been lacking, just that once.

Nobody agreed with him.

That made no difference.

So, he would not compound failure with failure. This was his last chance. He would take it.

He had tried all other avenues. Therapy, prayer, medication. Nothing worked, Yet what it had done was show him the way. It had made clear the path he needed to tread.

So he took a deep breath and rose from his seat. He nodded to the doctor signaling his readiness. The doctor frowned but kept his piece. He opened the door and let him enter his son’s room.

The room was sparse, clinical. His son lay curled on top of the bed sheets, motionless. Awake but unresponsive. He did not look up or acknowledge his father’s entrance.

There was a small bedside table to the left of the bed on which sat a plastic beaker of water. The bed was positioned by the window. Sunlight tried to make an impression on the coldness of the room but failed. The only other furniture was a white chest of drawers and some empty white bookshelves.

Then there were the books.

The books, many many books, that should have rested on the shelves or strewn on the floor. An impressive collection for one so young.

They hung impossibly in the air.

He sighed. He knew what came next. It had all become familiar to him. This time though he did not avoid it. He did not flinch or try to defend himself. This time he smiled at his son.

The books flew at him. As if thrown by immense strength and anger. The hard spines whacked into his flesh like dull nails. Again and again and again. Raining pain upon his body. The books that hit him fell to the ground limply, twitched like dying flies, then were suddenly whisked up and flung again.

There was no let-up.

He could feel his body being pummelled into a bloody bruised mess. But he took it. Stood calmly, raised his arms towards his son and kept smiling. Gave all he had left to him – gave him his unconditional love. Took the punishment not meant for him.

The books whirled faster as the rage grew. Like a tornado of leather and card, they descended on him, pounded him. The pain passed over what was bearable to no longer being processable – so he no longer felt it. He knew he would not last much longer – if this continued his body would fail him. Darkness crept inwards along the edges of his eyes. He kept smiling, locked his legs and stood, arms out.

The whirl became a darkness that was trying to beat his flesh from his bones. He felt like the bones themselves were splintering beneath.

Then it stopped.

Suddenly all the books fell to the floor. Sunlight sprang into the room as is a lock had burst.

Like this:

Death and lust
Entwined in one
Both without
A thought
Both with
Expert care
Sheer red satin
Ripped to shreds
Blood red
Pale skin
Gun metal grey
In cold blue eyes
And a name
That beats hearts
Passion and fear
And steel
And lead
Death and lust
And a name
The name is…..

Like this:

In the few idle moments of the day
The few
The very few
I think
I dream
Big plans
And small
How I can achieve my goals
How I will relax tonight
A film?
A beer?
Finish my masterpiece
Find fame and fortune
And then the moment’s gone
Reality bites
Decisions are taken away
And I am the whim of everyone else again
Maybe
I should stop thinking
Stop dreaming
So my dreams
Are no longer buried
In disappointment

“I have been hearing that for two weeks now! And have been given nothing! No answers! I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what has happened to me. Everyone talks strange and treats me like some kind of alien or freak show. And where are my fucking family!”

For a second the Doctor looked horrified. Then he quickly composed himself.

“Again I can only apologise. But I will explain now. When I do you will understand our … reticence. ”

“About time..”, muttered Henry.The Doctor gave him a look of pity.

“Brace yourself. ”

Henry suddenly felt cold. The Doctor went on.

“Our records show that you were in a cycling accident.”

He pronounced cycling as if he didn’t know what the word meant.

“You suffered severe brain injuries. You were put into a coma to try to protect your higher brain functions. When the swelling had subsided the medical team tried to revive you. They failed. You remained in a coma.”

Henry shifted in his chair. His voice was broken as he spoke.

“How long?”

“Ten years.”

“I have been out for ten years?”

“It’s more complicated. While you were under the world around you changed. It got worse, a lot worse. Your wife… well it seems she was a sharp woman. She saw things clearer than most. For one thing she left us plenty of notes. That’s why we know so much.”

Henry felt a growing sense of dread. But he kept silent.

“Because she saw things clearly she prepared, took action. What I am going to tell you will be hard for you to hear. But bear in mind that with the benefit of hindsight we can see that what she did was for her family. For your children. She took steps to protect them.”

“Protect them?” His heart was racing. “Protect them from what?”

“From war.”

“There was a fucking war?” The Doctor flinched again, but he went on.

“Yes. It was a dark time.”

“World War Three?”

“Not quite. I mean that’s what people expected. What your wife thought was coming. But it was not and all-encompassing war like that. No one side against the other. No. What transpired was a series of many many, small wars between countries.”

He shuddered and continued.

“You might think that would have been better than a world war, but it was not. It was far worse. With just about every country in the world caught up in their own conflicts there was nobody to coordinate any kind of peace deal. No one to talk to anyway if there had have been. So the wars dragged on, for years, decades.”

“Decades? I thought you said ..” the Doctor stilled him with a look.

“Your wife saw the dark times coming. She took steps to protect her family. The first of which was she remarried. ”

“She… what? She..”

“She married into immense wealth. And she used the money to protect her children and you. We know she did this well as we know they survived the dark times.”

“They are alive! I can see them!”

“No. You cannot. They are…. let me finish.”

A lump of dread was threatening to strangle him.

“She also tried to protect you. With all the resources of her great wealth she threw everything they had at the time towards reviving you. Nothing worked. Finally, when it looked darkest and there was no guarantee that anyone would survive she threw you one last desperate lifeline. An experimental treatment.”

The Doctor paused, looked him deep in the eye.

“She put you into suspended animation.”

Henry felt chilled to the bone.

“So no, you cannot see your wife and children. They have been dead for over two hundred years. We have only just been able to awaken you.”

“No. No, this can’t be. It’s some sort of sick joke isn’t it? There’s cameras in here. Well it’s not funny! I want to see my family!”

“Please Mr Dickens, please calm down. I know this is a lot to take in and I am sorry. But there is more. There is something else you need to know.”

“Calm down? Calm the fuck down? I want my family in this room! Here and now! Don’t give me any more bullshit.”

The doctor nodded very slightly, subtly, but Henry noticed.

It was too late.hands he didn’t see took a firm hold of his arms. Held him steadfastly. He felt a cold disc of metal against the skin of his neck, there was a hiss, then he fell swirling into darkness.

“You want me to what!?”

Henry looked at the panel before him, twelve men and women, with utter disbelief.

“Mr Dickens. We understand that you have a lot to take in over the last few weeks.”

“A lot!” Henry stared. How could they possibly understand. He has lost everything. His family, his love, his world. He had seen very little of this world but he had seen enough to know that it was not his. He was an alien here.

And now this.

“We understand that you have lost a lot. You have to understand that the world has lost a lot too.”

“I have heard all about your wars. Lots of people died. Yes.”

“They were not our wars, “ said the chairman of the panel, his voice calm and cold. “And I don’t think you have an appreciation of just how many people died, or what that meant.”

Henry didn’t see what any of it had to do with him. The chairman continued anyway.

“The population of the earth was cut by 75%. You have no idea what that did to us. There were very few people left to run things. Very few who knew how to keep things running. Power stations failed. Oil wells stopped pumping. Machines broke down. Nobody knew how to rule, how to respond to the disasters. All that had been wiped away in war after war.

“The times after the wars were darker than the actual wars. The world came close to slipping into barbarism. In many places it did.”

“And you came along and saved it,” said Henry sourly.

“We survived. We were not involved – because we were overlooked. We had no wealth, no strategic value. Largely we were forgotten up in the mountains.”

He paused, letting Henry take in his words. Henry said nothing so he continued.

“We don’t really know what triggered many of the wars, people say it was largely financial – but those are theories, based on times gone by. What we do know is that as things got more and more desperate the terms of the conflicts changed. They became more ideological. In many cases fiercely religious. This was why many of them could not be stopped, there came a point where reason stopped being any part of the fighting.

“It was another reason we were not drawn into it. As Buddhists we eschewed all the arguments for fighting. But we were also no threat to anyone. Those that were bent on converting the world, well – most had forgotten us, or were just leaving us to last.

“So in the end, we survived just by being the last ones standing. We were the only thing left close to being a coherent nation.

“And we were used to living frugally. We were in a unique position to fill the niche so to speak.

“So people flocked to us. They saw our way of life working. Saw it as a light in the dark, a hope.”

“And you made them all convert!” Henry spat.

“Not at first,” replied the chairman. “That was not our way, never had been. But it was a disaster. Trying to accommodate everyone’s views, conflicting ways of doing things. Trying to keep on top of all the old tensions, historical hatreds and prejudices. Well it almost tore us apart. And we were so fragile then, we still are.”

The chairman leaned forward.

“You have to understand something. The earth is damaged. It’s worn out, and depleted. It will never recover, not in the ways we would want it to. The comforts and luxuries of generations past have gone. If we are to survive we must change our ways. And some of those ways might seem extreme to you. They are – but so is our situation.”

“So I have to convert to Buddhism! No choice!”

“That is correct. and it has to be genuine. You must live by our ways.”

“What do you do check up on me? Monitor me? Give me exams every month or something.”

“We do not need to. The way our society is structured, if you do not follow our ways, it would be obvious. If your thoughts do not flow with those around you – it will be grossly evident to all around you.”

“So I am not even allowed to think outside of your precious bloody ways.”

“As I said, the ways are extreme, and your manner does not fit – at the moment.”

Henry snorted in derision. Did they really think he was going to take this.

“And if I refuse?”

“We cannot allow the possibility of disruption to the balance. You will be executed.”

Henry stared open-mouthed.

“You are kidding! That doesn’t sound very like the Buddhism that was around in my time.”

“Maybe not – we have had to make our sacrifices too. But we are humane.”

“How can killing someone be humane?”

“You would die happy and fulfilled. We have our ways”

“Well hoo – fucking – ray!”

“Are you sure that you do not want to change your mind?” said the monk. Henry assumed it was a monk. He looked like the Buddhist monks from his own era but he just didn’t know any more.

He wasn’t sure he cared either.

“Why would I do that?”

“So you can live,” said the monk with surprise.

“What for? My life is gone. Everything I knew is gone. My life would be as a stranger in a cage of rules I don’t want and don’t understand. I can’t live like that.”

“You haven’t given it a chance. You have no idea the peace and joy of our lives. You are judging us by your primitive standards. You…

“Enough!” A voice of authority barked from a hidden source. The monk started and looked guilty and continued preparing the elaborate machine Henry was embedded into.

Joy indeed! Henry snorted to himself. Get on with it, he thought.

The monk appeared to comply. He stepped back, nodded at the back wall and left.

The machine hummed and enclosed further around Henry like some futuristic iron maiden. A needle swung into his vision, poised at his neck and then stopped.

The voice spoke again.

“It saddens us to do this friend. But our society, mankind, must survive.”

“Yes, yes. I can imagine the tears you are shedding.”

“You will not change your mind?”

“You will not let me live among you without converting?” Henry countered.

“No.”

“Not even for a limited time – say a month, to see if you can change my mind?” The sarcasm in his voice told them all he did not expect any reasonable answer to that.

“No.”

“Then get on with it!”

“Very well. Judge! Carry out the execution.”

Henry didn’t even take a breath. He’d had enough, reached his limit. He wanted it ended.

Nothing happened. He looked up, the needle stayed poised, he could almost see the poison dripping from it.

“Judge! What is happening? Carry out the execution.”

“No.” The new voice was quietly defiant.

“What? Judge, carry out your task, execute him.”

“No!” What Henry presumed was the Judge’s voice was louder and firmer this time. “I will not. He is right. We should give him time amongst us.”

“This is not acceptable, Judge, do your job!”

“What does it say about our society if we do not trust it to be good enough to sway him? If we are scared that it so weak that a single man can topple it? We need to start our own healing, and it should start with him. We will give him his time. One month. If he is still not convinced, I will carry out the sentence.”

“This is not acceptable, Judge!”

Something stirred in Henry. Suddenly, out of nowhere he wanted what the Judge was offering him. A chance. A chance to live.

“You will accept it. I am the only one in this world who can carry out this sentence and I will not.”

“Your apprentice…”

“Will not be able to carry it out. I have already locked him out of all the processes. Only I can release the locks. He will have his time.”

“Next up, we are talking to the sensation of the age. The man who was frozen in time and has awoken to join us in the future. The man who escaped death twice and who is shaking the world. The man the leaders fear, the man who asks questions.

“Well today, we hope, he will be answering some of our questions.”

The interviewer turned to Henry while the applause of the audience died down. Henry squirmed uncomfortably. Of all the damn things to survive into this century it had to be talk shows! And he was the fucking subject.

He had to remember not to swear too. He had learnt it was considered way more offensive in these times than his own.

“Mr Dickens, thank you for joining us, let us begin with the biggest question.

“OK.” said Henry.

“We have all heard your remarkable story, it has tugged at all our hearts, we all grieve for your losses. The question we have is, why did you refuse conversion when offered at first? Why, as it appears did you choose death?”

Henry was suddenly overwhelmed with emotions that he struggled to keep under wraps. Grieve for my losses? What could they possibly understand about his losses! The very stupidity of the question betrayed how little they could understand.

How could he answer that?

The audience did not let him. A voice shouted out.

“Why didn’t you just convert!? What’s wrong with our way of life?”

Henry couldn’t see the source of the voice. He sounded like a fanatic, a tone not uncommon in this new world he had discovered.

“I knew nothing about it, you expected I would just convert, without questioning what I was getting into.”

“What’s to question? This way of life has saved us, saved humanity.”

People clapped and cheered the questioner.

“Has it? Or has it turned you all into cattle? Sheep that blindly follow ‘the way’.”

The audience booed and jeered at him, he was a little surprised. His opinions were not exactly secret, they had been broadcast around the world for the two weeks since his stay of execution.

He was the biggest news story of the time.

Hardly surprising as very little else seemed to be happening in the world.

They had peace OK. And it was boring.

“Let him speak!” another voice rang out above the protests.

The audience quietened down, shocked that someone, one of their own appeared to be supporting him.

“Let us hear what he has to say. If our society is so perfect then what possible threat could he be?”

Henry was surprised himself to hear a small ripple of applause supporting this new stance.

He spoke.

“Sure, you have peace. Your society is a model of sustainability and balance. I admire it in many ways. But it is frozen, you are so scared to upset the balance you allow no change. You have stopped growing. You might survive for now, but when change comes – when it is thrust upon you, you won’t know how to deal with it, how to adapt.

“You are like a rose, frozen in liquid nitrogen. Beautiful, preserved for all time, but dead. And easily shattered with a single blow.”

“Why didn’t you just pretend? Just convert and be quiet?” said the original voice.

Henry stood angrily now.

“I spent the whole of my old life dreaming of being someone. Of making my mark on the world. Leaving behind a legacy beyond just my genes. But I didn’t, I was nothing. I worked, I existed, I supported my family, I loved. But nothing more than what every other person was doing around me. I always dreamed one day, one day – but that day was never to be.

“And now – you expect me to just shut up and become just another cog in the machine again. With even less freedom and liberty than before? Well fuck you all if that’s what you think.”

Like this:

Keys can lock and jangle
Hold us safe and secure
Take away liberty or open up the doors
And the doors they can open….
Silver is the primary key
That opens up our home
We do have gold but it is worn
From use and years and time
Some keys are rows of black and white
And open up our hearts
With wondrous weaving melodies
Soaring sounds from worlds apart
But the keys that give me magic
And warm my ailing heart
Dance beneath my fingertips
As dreams flow from my art

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A few weekends ago the family and I took a walk along the coast – through some marshes. On the way, I took this photo.

My wife loved it so much – I think mainly because it signified a wonderful day out – (we don’t have so many of those these days) – that she wants it blown up for her birthday. So it is on its way now as a canvas print 🙂

Anyway – when I saw the boat something about it was portentous to me. Not dangerous but promising big changes or something. I don’t know why. The thing is, a few days later I was doing a google search on my name. I wasn’t being narcissistic, I was trying to see if SEO changes on y website had made any difference. As usual, one of the top results was a solicitor in the south who goes by the same name. The odd thing was though -= they had this picture on their website,

Now, not the same boat – but spooky……

Then today – the daily prompt was sail. I already had the title Red Sails buzzing around in my head – the rest came naturally.

Like this:

I wandered lonely as a brick
That sinks and dives in stream and lake,
When all at once I was so sick,
And an awful mess I did make.
Beside the lake, beneath the trees.
Splattering my stomach in the breeze.

It must have been the bread I had
Or maybe that old Milky Way.
This puddle of sick smelt so bad
Along the margin of the bay.
Ten pints I had drunk, at a guess.
Tossing my head, I felt a mess.

The waves in my head danced, and they
Dashed my weak legs from under me.
A poet could not be so gay
As the one who stood over me.
He gazed and gazed and then in glee
Threw up and fell down next to me.

Next morn when on my couch I lay
In vacant and in pensive mood.
I swore I’d give up drink that day.
And swore some more, it was quite rude.
But soon, once more, the cider spills.
I’ll sleep again with daffodils.

Like this:

Sunny
She was
And the shadow she cast were long
We long for her
Now the winter is here
And the long long night descends
Bright was her smile
White and bright her smile
Deep and black her skin
And we wanted in
From afar
Memories of sun
In the dusk

Like this:

A
Blank piece of paper
Has
Limitless potential
To become
A plane
A swan
A hat
Or an idle doodle
Or a poem of grief
Or love
Or rage
A protest
A plea
A stiff complaint
A soft seduction
Or
The start
Of a whole new world

Like this:

We should meddle
With the peddling of their lies
We should obscure
All the surety of their spies
We should extrapolate
What they obfuscate
To find truth
We should hold hands
In bands and lands
Of support

Like this:

Is life just spin the bottle
As the bottle maker laughs
Or a game of hopscotch
Lines drawn in shifting sand
Children’s games and distractions
Carried over time
Methods and controllers
Programming sublime

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The greater the volume
Of opinion
The more stress upon the foundation
The higher the lofty morals
The shakier the ivory tower
Oh how the papers wail
How the timelines howl
The mad feeding frenzy
Of the trolls
Who rule

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One is a mother – caring and fierce
Two is wife with perceptions that pierce
Three is a woman Kind and strong
Four is a friend to help me along
Five is the lover tender and sweet
All are in one perfect – petite
One beautiful and loving wife
The five with whom I will spend my life

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It’s been a strange week. I have taken some time off. Partly because the kids are on half term. Partly because a week today I start my new job so not sure when I will next be able to take time off for a while. Partly because we are still reeling a bit from the news that my wife is facing some serious surgery. Finally, because our youngest, having been diagnosed with ASD, and the mainstream school he was at being unable to cope – he has changed schools and went for his first day there today. So We have had to support him in this – and his brother who now has to cope with the fact that his little brother won’t be at school with him.

For someone with ASD it had the potential for disaster. He has had so much change in his life already, now he has been taken away from all the friends he made at school and has to face a long journey on a minibus with strangers to go to a much larger – but admittedly better – school. He managed admirably on his first day. Time will tell what the effects will really be. At least he will get proper attention now. He has gone from a class or 29 to a class of 6! With 4 teachers!

But all that’s just life. There were some oddities during this time off.

The first was late one night when we awoke in the middle of the night to an awful racket outside our window. It was a bird giving an alarm call and going totally mental. We looked out the window and I caught a glimpse of a cat slinking away with a dead bird in its mouth. I feared that it had got one of the noisy bird’s chicks. My wife – who can’t stand to see an ant hurt – raced out in her nightie to try to find the cat – all in vain. But the bird was still making a racket. So Rachel turfed your’s truly out of bed to go and take a look. After hunting around and finding nothing for ages I finally discovered another cat lurking in the shadows. After shooing it away the bird was finally silent. All kind of weird but ever since every time I go out the front door the same bird flies down to a nearby fence and sings at me. Rachel is convinced it is saying thanks for trying to help.

We must have weird wildlife around here as it gets stranger. A few days later while cycling back from the park with the kids, we saw that one of our neighbours was giving away a mini trampoline. One of those with a bar to hold on to – for toddlers really. We snapped it up. Our youngest loves nothing more than to bounce. On beds, on my back – anywhere! Well, that night we started to prepare our living room for some DIY (painting). This – against my protests – turned into actually doing the painting and went on to 3am! Once we finally got to a stopping point I went out into the garden to put some stuff away in our shed to find – I swear this is true – our resident frog jumping on the trampoline!

The frog – actually a whole family – appeared a few years ago and can be seen quite often in the garden at night. This is especially odd as we don’t have a pond! Nor do any of our immediate neighbours!

I just wish I had it on camera.

Oh well, back to work tomorrow. Three more days then a job of ten years comes to an end. Will be very strange.

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About

A Different Spectrum

I have always thought that I have viewed the world using a different spectrum. At one end I miss the things that are blindingly obvious to anyone else. At the other I see things that other miss. So my take on the world is a little askew - if not sometimes weird. So this blog reflects that. As do my works - my novel, my short stories and my poetry.